The Sanctuary Read Online Free PDF Page B

aren’t many buyers, not inside Iraq anyway. Anyway, Abu Barzan had this collection he was trying to sell. He wanted to leave the country, settle somewhere safe—we all do—but it takes money. So he was asking around, quietly, looking for a buyer. He knew I had some good contacts outside the country. He offered to split the proceeds with me.”
    Farouk lit up another cigarette, glancing around furtively as he did.
    “Anyway, I thought of you when I saw the Ouroboros,” he added, reaching out and tapping the snapshot of the codex. “I called around to see if anyone knew where you were. Mahfouz Zacharia—”
    “Of course,” Evelyn interjected. She’d kept in touch with the curator of the National Museum of Antiquities in Baghdad . Especially post-invasion, when the whole looting scandal had erupted. “Farouk, you know I can’t touch these. We shouldn’t be having this conversation.”
    “You have to help me,
Sitt
Evelyn. Please. I can’t go back to Iraq . It’s worse than you imagine. You want this book, don’t you? I’ll get it for you. Just help me stay here, please. You can use a driver, can’t you? An assistant? I’ll do anything. I can be useful, you know that. Please. I can’t go back there.”
    She winced. “Farouk, it’s not that easy.” She shook her head faintly and glanced at the desolate hills sweeping away from the mosque. Along a small stone wall, row upon row of brown tobacco leaves, threaded onto wires months ago to dry in the summer sun, lay there, rotten and grayed, covered in the same thick dust that smothered the entire region. Overhead, the faint buzz of an Israeli drone rose and died with the breeze, a constant reminder of the simmering tension.
    Farouk’s face darkened. His breathing was now shorter and faster, his hands agitated. “You remember Hajj Ali Salloum?”
    Another name from the past. An antiques dealer too, if Evelyn’s memory was correct— which it usually was. Based in Baghdad . His shop was three doors down from Farouk’s. She remembered them being close, though staunchly competitive when it came to clients and sales.
    “He’s dead.” Farouk’s voice was quivering. “And I think it’s because of this book.”
    Evelyn’s expression clouded as she struggled for words. “What happened to him?”
    A sharper fear flickered in his eyes. “What is this book about,
Sitt
Evelyn? Who else is after it?”
    Consternation flooded her voice. “I don’t know.”
    “What about Mr. Tom? He was working on it with you. Maybe he knows. You need to ask him,
Sitt
Evelyn. Something very bad is happening. You can’t send me back there.”
    The mention pricked Evelyn’s heart. Before she could answer him, Ramez’s voice echoed through the mounds of rubble around them.
    “Evelyn?”
    Farouk shot her an anxious glare. She craned her neck to see Ramez appear, making his way over from the mosque. She glanced back at Farouk, who was looking down through the alleyways, towards the main street. When he turned back to face her, the blood seemed to have drained from his face. He shot her a look of such terror that she felt her heart constrict. He pushed the small stack of photos and the envelope into her hands and just said, “
Nine o’clock
, downtown, by the clock tower. Please come.”
    Ramez reached them, clearly wondering what was going on.
    Evelyn fumbled for words, unsure about what to say. “Farouk’s an old colleague of mine. From the old days, in Iraq .” Ramez seemed clearly aware of the unease hovering over them. Evelyn sensed Farouk was making a move and reached out to him reassuringly. “It’s okay. Ramez and I work together. At the university.”
    She was doing her best to telegraph to him that her colleague wasn’t a threat, but something had visibly spooked Farouk, who just nodded furtively at Ramez before telling her with an insistent, pleading voice, “Please be there.” And before she could object, he was already scrambling up the path, away from the